Day 1: Let’s Get it Started!!
Today started like most trips, with someone forgetting something. Namely Mark forgetting the map. Luckily, Mike was kind enough to drive me back home, to get the map.
We rolled out of Mike’s driveway just before 9, after receiving personalized temporary tattoos from Brittany and wishing Joey good luck on his motorcycle trip, we started down the pacific coast highway!
Our route tools us through Golden Gate Park to the Great Highway, a beautiful road along the coast. From the great highway we traveled along highway 35 to Daly City, then started climbing up to cross into Pacifica.
On the way up we passed a LEGO stand!! How cool is that! A boy, maybe around 12-14, was selling a bunch of his legos. We all bought LEGO pieces for the trip. I’ll upload a picture in a second blog.
With our LEGO in hand, and Mark wishing he could buy all of it, we continued along are route south. To my great surprise, we made fantastic time. We could’ve been to Halfmoon Bay by noon if we had pushed it. But instead, we took plenty of breaks.
We bikes along the Devils Slide area, where we learned that during WWII, women used to fly planes dragging targets for men to shoot at for practice!! Also, Devils Slide is an area that used to be highway 1, but kept getting washed out, so a tunnel was built, and now the area is for hikers and bikers! It was a beautiful twisting road overlooking the ocean.
After Devils slide, we bikes to a lunch spot with sandwiches so big that no one could finish them in one sitting!! They were excellent though.
Fast forward through checking out Mavericks (beautiful) and stopping into art gallery (not as beautiful), we made it to the campground at half moon bay!
There we immediately met Brad and David. They’re two friends/dads biking the same route we are! We chatted for awhile, and heard some great stories. They met at a party where Brad was dressed in a shirt covered in meat. (He also mentioned he lost his job because of that party, as he called in sick, but didn’t know it was at his bosses house!). I assume we’ll see them plenty of this trip.
After our chat we setup camp, and headed to the beach. The campground here is right next to the beach! As I’m writing this you can hear the waves pound the beach. It’s a really nice campground. We stayed on the beach for an hour, watching the waves explode on the shore. And playing some euchre.
Dinner quickly followed with an excellent Mexican take out place, and to finish the night up we went to a Shakespeare in the Park showing! The were doing As You Like It, and it was awesome!! They did a great job, and we stayed for the entire thing! Very funny and witty play.
Running back to camp, we quickly went to bed! Its already late and we have an early wake up tomorrow. Darragh leaves us tomorrow to go back to school. We will miss her dearly. But looking forward to our riding to Santa Cruz!! More pictures to come!!